Today I welcome back an amazing guest from episode 310, Dr. Al Danenberg.
When you last met Dr. Al, he talked all about his unconventional cancer journey. He is here to share the next chapter. After his integrative protocols and therapeutic carnivore diet, his recent PET scan showed something remarkable. I can't wait for you to hear this story.
More about Dr. Al Danenberg:
“Dr. Al” Danenberg is a periodontist and was in private practice for 44 years. He incorporated ancestral nutrition & lifestyle with his leading-edge laser protocol to treat periodontal disease. In September 2018, he retired from the practice of treating individual patients. However, he still consults with patients by phone, Skype, or Zoom regarding nutrition, lifestyle, oral and overall health, and the importance of a healthy gut.
Dr. Al received advanced training in evolutionary nutrition from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as well as The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. In June 2014, he received his Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP) designation as well as his certification as a Certified Primal Health Coach. In 2015, Dr. Danenberg was appointed to the faculty of the College of Integrative Medicine and created the college’s integrative periodontal teaching module. Then, in April 2017, he earned the designation of “ADAPT Trained Health Professional” from Kresser Institute. In July 2017, Elektra Press released Dr. Danenberg’s book, “Crazy-Good Living”, which is based on ancestral nutrition and lifestyle.
On April 14, 2020, Dr. Danenberg was appointed the Chair of the Periodontal Committee for the IABDM. He also created the Certification Program for Biological Nutritional Dental Professionals offered by the IABDM.
- Dr. Danenberg can be contacted from his website – https://drdanenberg.com/contact/
- Fastonic Cellular Molecular Hydrogen – support all forms of fasting with molecular H2!
- Dr. Pompa's Beyond Fasting – now released!
Help Us Spread The Word!
I would love if you could head on over to Apple Podcasts and SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW! And if you’re moved to, kindly leave us a rating and review. Maybe you’ll get a shout out on the show!
Ways to Subscribe to Cellular Healing TV:
Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
Have you heard about the carnivore diet? Okay. Episode 310, we interviewed Dr. Al about the carnivore diet. He, because of his cancer, basically went in to a carnivore diet. At that show, he was two to three weeks into it. We couldn’t help but do a follow-up. Wait until you hear the results of the carnivore diet. What he did. His doctor’s feelings about this whole thing. The results, most importantly, but a wealth of knowledge. We talk about causative factors. We talk about the how-to on a carnivore diet which is really important. It’s not what you think. Anyways, what a story this is and one you’re going to want to share. Check it out.
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I am Ashley Smith. Today, we welcome back an amazing guest. He was on episode 310. His name is Dr. Al Danenberg. He joined us last time to talk all about his unconventional cancer journey. He is here to share the next chapter and give us some updates. After his integrative protocols, his recent PET scan showed something remarkable. I’ll let him share what that is. Let’s get started and welcome Dr. Al and of course, Dr. Pompa to the show. Welcome both of you.
Dr. Al:
Oh, thank you so much, Ashley. I appreciate it.
Dr. Pompa:
Al, so when you popped on the screen before we started recording, I said, he’s alive.
Dr. Al:
I am alive and kicking and all that stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
The reason I said it is because, hey man, you were supposed to be dead long ago. What the heck?
Dr. Al:
December of 2018, that’s a long time ago.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, you’re off the schedule here, gosh.
Dr. Al:
I know. I know. My oncologist is floored, literally floored. He said he has no patient—number one, he has no patient that’s not gone with chemotherapy that has had a result like I’ve had with the kind of unconventional protocols that I’ve created for myself. He’s really amazed.
Dr. Pompa:
Look, I’m one to say, if you get to the cause, the body can heal. Yeah, you’ve done some conventional things to help your body heal even faster, but we’ll talk a little bit about this oral cavity is the cause of 85%, 90% of most disease today. Definitely most gut conditions. I believe it was one of your big discoveries. This is your background, for goodness sake. You know more about the oral cavity than most, that’s for sure. Obviously, affecting you, driving cancer and other conditions often. We’ll get to that. This is part two. We left off and you just started the carnivore diet. Start with what is it in case people didn’t see the first show, but go back and see the first show. The link is going to be here.
He had just started. I think he was two or three weeks into the carnivore diet and we said, we’re going to do a show, check-up on you because everybody thought you were nuts except me because I said, hey, well, isn’t for cancer all the plant-based diets the key, the Gerson diet, et cetera. You and I were going, no, I would be doing the carnivore diet. All meat and fat, really? Fill us in. Help us from there.
Dr. Al:
Really. As a matter of fact, it’s really real. Prior to January 1st 2020, I was on a Paleolithic autoimmune diet. Great diet to help my body’s immune system and support it with healing. That was part of my cancer protocols. I had several and that was one of the major protocols. I did some research, as you know and we talked about. What this carnivore diet may do not just for chronic disease, but very specifically for cancer which is what I have. I have a terminal bone marrow cancer called IgA kappa light chain multiple myeloma which is much more complicated with my lytic lesions throughout my body. Not only do I have these malignant plasma cells running crazy, but in addition to that, I have so many holes my bone structure that my bone, my skeleton can’t support the weight of my body and I’ve had pathological fractures more than you probably have fingers, but enough. Quite enough pathological fractures. I think we went into that already.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, we did.
Dr. Al:
Yeah. When I did some research about the carnivore diet, and the carnivore diet is not a meat-only diet by no stretch of the imagination because meat-only for most people they think muscle meat. That is a very unhealthy diet. You need to have a combination of proteins that are animal-based. It needs to be collagenous as well as muscle meat. The more important element is actually the fat and the ratio of fat to protein in terms of grams is two to one. I’m eating a hell of a lot of fat and I’m not gaining a pound. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost maybe five pounds along the way and I’ve not changed my lean body mass.
What’s really nice, I’ve got plenty of energy. Plenty of energy until maybe 6:30 in the evening and then, I start to conk out. Okay, I’m a sick guy, right? Still, I’m doing really well. It is basically a two to one, fat to protein in terms of gram diet of muscle meat, organs. Organs are critical because that’s where the nutrients are and fat and all the collagenous material. That’s what I eat. I was doing that absolutely strictly for the first five plus months. Then I started to tweak it a little bit based on the diet that is used at the Paleomedicina clinic in Budapest, Hungary where they actually are treating their patients that have severe chronic disease as well as cancer with this particular Paleolithic—they call it a Paleolithic ketogenic diet, carnivore diet, generally, 100%, but they will go up to or down to 70% animal-based and 30% plant-based. Basically, plants that are adequate for a Paleo type diet.
Dr. Pompa:
I think you’re doing about 10%?
Dr. Al:
Yes. I’m doing about 10% plants that have minor antinutrients and basically, 90% carnivore at this point.
Dr. Pompa:
Let’s be clear. You did five months of just organ—
Dr. Al:
Absolutely, 100%.
Dr. Pompa:
Two to one fat or meat, et cetera.
Dr. Al:
Right, right. As a matter of fact, when you go to shop for a carnivore diet like that, it’s an easy shop. There’s only a few things that you buy. You have to create some variety in your life, but still, the beautiful thing is, it’s so satisfying to eat this food. You’re not constantly hungry. I don’t snack at all. There is no snacking whatsoever because I’m not hungry. I basically start my meal 12:00, 1:00 in the afternoon. I have my dinner maybe at 6:30-ish and that’s it. I really don’t do anything other than drink quite a bit of water.
Dr. Pompa:
This is what people want to know. Bring us through what these five months look like. Your health condition. Again, your doctors are just, what. Not only is he alive, he’s thriving. Take us through what the carnivore diet did for you, the changes, what you felt, what were the changes in your bone, your cancer, your PET scan. Take us through.
Dr. Al:
I see my oncologist every month. I do traditional bloodwork which is basically a CBC and blood chemistries. Every two to three months, I do a very specific cancer bloodwork looking at the unnatural antibodies which are the IgA antibodies in my case that are being produced by my malignant plasma cells. For the most part, my blood chemistries are all within normal range which is amazing because with all these holes in my body, I should be having significant calcium in my blood studies and I don’t. I don’t have any calcium that’s above the limits. Generally, it’s right in the middle of the range. I don’t have alkaline phosphatase problems or any of the other chemistry problems. Basically, my chemistries are good. My CBC is good.
Dr. Pompa:
I mean, most people would be like, isn’t his cholesterol going up because of all of the—
Dr. Al:
I’ve never been concerned about cholesterol.
Dr. Pompa:
Me either. That’s why I said it with such—
Dr. Al:
My cholesterol is important for my hormone production. All the males that have problems with cholesterol also have erectile dysfunction. I mean, it’s crazy. Anyhow, in my opinion, this diet has allowed my immune system to really be supported and has done a tremendous job in improving my ability to even withstand normal infections. I’m theoretically at high risk. When I saw my oncologist, maybe two or three months before the COVID thing started, he and his PA, his physician’s assistant, came into the room. They were wearing masks. They were drooling and sneezing and they had red eyes. They told me that they had a bad case of the flu, but they needed to be there. Of course, I took the flu shot. That’s another issue. I thought I was going to be in this room, my immune system is so compromised, I’m going to get sick. I never got sick. I believe everything I’m doing has really supported my immune system. There’s not a really good test to determine if your immune system is really healthy other than not getting sick.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s true.
Dr. Al:
I’m not getting sick. We go along. My blood chemistries are good. I’m never in remission, by the way and I will never tell anybody I have a cure for cancer. I just have a series of protocols that really are improving my immune system. I think that’s the bottom line to everybody’s health.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, of course. What’s going on with your bone? I remember obviously you—multiple fractures in the bone. How’s it healing? What do your doctors say about that?
Dr. Al:
I do not have a current bone scan. I do have the bone CT which was part of the PET scan which was where they injected me with radioactive glucose to look for cancer cells. That was in May of 2020. What we were doing at that point, my oncologist said, “Let’s just see how much cancer is throughout your body.” We had a PET scan when I was diagnosed in September of 2018. One in June of 2019 and this was the third one in a row. We had that. I had that. It was on a Friday morning. My oncologist called me Friday night and he said to make sure my wife gets on speaker phone. I said, “George, okay.” He’s reading the radiologist’s report and the radiologist is saying there are no active cancer cells in my entire body. I said to George, “Wait a minute. Read that again.” Read that again and of course, my wife is crying. I am off the floor floating.
Basically, there are no cancer cells. Now, in reality, that’s not true because the PET scan is only looking at moderate to large amounts of cancer cells in clumps. I don’t have those anymore, but I did. Now, there are probably these malignant plasma cells that may be dying or may be dead already and they’re still producing all these abnormal IgA antibodies and they’re still floating around. There’s going to be several months before maybe that clears out, if it clears out. I got to tell you I feel fantastic. If I will go for the next 20 years and still not be in remission, I’m okay with that. Not a problem.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s remarkable your attitude through it all. It really is. I’m always just fascinated by it. You give people a lot of hope. You really do, Al.
Dr. Al:
There are always ways to deal with things. There’s a lot to be said with stress and emotion because you can be the healthiest person around but you’re under emotional stress it’s going to affect your entire system especially the epithelial barrier of your gut. You’re going to have LPS leaking out because of the stress. You’re going to have metabolic endotoxemia. It doesn’t matter how healthy you are, that stress is going to do it. If you can control stress and of course, have a significant other that really supports you, and I do. My wife is amazing. She picks me up when I’m down and I can get really down by the way. That has been really, I think, a major factor why I’m doing as well as I doing with my other protocols, like I said.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s awesome. God has you alive for a reason, Al. I don’t think he’s taking you out any time soon. Your message is too important.
Dr. Al:
Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
Honestly. What did you feel? Your transition. We spoke to you since you were three weeks into it and you had said, it was a little rough in the beginning, right?
Dr. Al:
Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
You were just breaking through I think when we spoke to you. How did it break through? You know what I’m saying? What were some of the most significant changes?
Dr. Al:
Great question. I had to think back a little bit. Several things that were happening had a little bit to do with bowel movements although I never had a bowel movement problem before the carnivore diet. I think maybe I had some issues for the first week or two but nothing severe. When I’m on the Paleo autoimmune diet, I’m basically fat adapted anyhow so it’s not like I have these carbs—withdrawal from carbohydrates. I haven’t been a junkie food eater for over seven years although I was, but for the last seven years, I’ve been really excellent. I think that maybe there was a transition because of the very high level of fats.
I remember years ago, I was convincing my son-in-law to drink some bulletproof coffee that I made, and I made it with a lot of fat. He never had fat in his coffee, and he had diarrhea all day. I mean, when you have this high level of fat in your diet, your gut is going to talk to you a little bit. I think that was the main problem. Other than that, I really experienced great energy, great clarity. I never had problems with sleeping and I never did during the carnivore diet in the early stages. I can’t tell you that I had a specific problem other than maybe some bowel movement issues for the first week or two.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s great. Give us a day of your eating. Give us what it was like. Take us from you get up and what you do. As a matter of fact, take us through a day in your life actually, Al.
Dr. Al:
Absolutely. It’s boring for most people because I’m not getting out. I do walk for example. First thing in the morning, and when I say first thing in the morning, it’s very hot and sticky in Charleston, South Carolina. First thing in the morning is 6:30 to 7:00 AM for me. I will get out and walk about a mile. That’s impressive for me.
Dr. Pompa:
No, I was going to say—I mean, you have to understand. There was a time when Al walked, he would just fracture hips and femurs.
Dr. Al:
Because of those fractures, I was in hospice ready to die in September of 2019, so I’ve come a long way. I’ve got some things in my legs to support me because of the fractures, but I walk about a mile a day. I have a mile that I’ve tracked off that I can identify. I walk it. I love it and I do that. During the day, and it’s not every day, maybe three to four times a day I do some modified squats and modified push-ups. That’s a little complicated because of the fractures in my femurs. Then I have a right humerus that was fractured that never was set. I have this complication but I do it and I don’t have any problem with it. That’s what I do every day to every third day.
Now, I do love my coffee, so I have my pressed coffee in the morning. I make it with two tablespoons of collagen peptides, two tablespoons of heavy raw cream because we can get raw milk in Charleston, South Carolina. I make it with two tablespoons of my own ghee that I make from grass-fed butter. There’s a lot of fat in my coffee. Love it. I mean, I love it. I drink basically 16 ounces, two cups in the morning. I sip on it for an hour or two, but I love it. Then I’m not eating until one-ish o’clock. My breakfast or the first meal, although some people will say if you had collagen peptide, you had a meal already. My first real meal that I’m chewing would be—for example, today, I had liver pate which is phenomenal. It has a four to one fat to protein ratio. It’s made with some really good stuff. I get it at Whole Foods. I had that and some salmon roe.
Dr. Pompa:
Do you actually buy the liver pate there?
Dr. Al:
Yeah. I can make my own liver pate and I do that sometimes, but this is pork liver and chicken liver that is made with some seasonings. Maybe some onions, I think, and a couple other things and that’s it. Very, very excellent and it’s a quick eat so I do that. Tonight, I will prepare for dinner. I’m going to have some ground beef. Let me tell you the ground beef that I get which is really amazing. There’s a farm in Florida that raises grass-fed, grass-finished wagyu beef. Oh, my god. It is amazing.
Dr. Pompa:
I want that resource. I want that resource.
Dr. Al:
I will send you that and that article, yeah. A farm in Florida, I’m making a note. Wagyu beef has a great flavor. It is definitely distinct. It has higher fat content. Actually, there is a much higher omega-3 fatty acid content than regular grass-fed beef which is high in omega-3, so it’s even higher than that. They have all kinds of cuts and I just get a variety that I like. I get the fattier cuts like [00:21:08] and cow tail or ox tail, some short ribs. These are really fatty and their ground beef which is great and sometimes prime rib. Tonight, I’m going to take this ground beef and I’m going to sauté it with some Himalayan salt. I put a little sprinkle of kelp granules just to make sure I have some iodine.
I will maybe season it with some fresh shiitake and organic onions that I’ll chop up and cook with it. Those veggies, they’re very, very small in amount and they are appropriate for at least the Paleomedicina philosophy of a carnivore diet which I agree with. That will be it. I will have maybe some fruit. I’ll have some cherries maybe, four or five cherries. Cherries are great. They are low on oxalates. They have maybe one gram of carb per cherry so five cherries is not going to do anything to me, but I like that little taste. That will be it.
Dr. Pompa:
Before that, you just would have had the meats.
Dr. Al:
Yes, without the cherries, without the onions. Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
No vegetable on your—
Dr. Al:
No, not at all. Not at all. My only seasoning would be Himalayan salt. I will drink plenty of water when I’m thirsty all day long and I love FIJI artesian water from France. I like the natural spring waters. That FIJI is really a nice flavor for me, so I like it.
Dr. Pompa:
I like the flavor too. When you switched from pure carnivore to adding in 10% the vegetables, some of those fruits, what did you notice? Did you notice anything?
Dr. Al:
No, I didn’t, but I got to tell you something exciting. Let me show you my arm.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m thinking like you started getting more gas maybe.
Dr. Al:
No. No. Those vegetables and fruits really didn’t have a lot of fiber either.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. I just thought maybe.
Dr. Al:
No, I did not, but let me show you. I have a CGM on my arm and I am experimenting—I’ll write about this in a couple of weeks. I am experimenting on my glucose control as a cancer patient, but it’s fascinating. For example, I experimented with raw Manuka honey. Raw Manuka honey is okay with carnivore. First of all, it’s an animal-based food and I took, which is very interesting, I took two tablespoons of Manuka honey. That’s a lot of honey and ate it and my glucose was about 85 to 88. I’ll tell you about my glucose normally. 85 to 88 at that point, it spiked to 154 in an hour and a half and dropped down to the low 80s within another hour. Interesting. I was on basically an empty stomach.
Dr. Pompa:
How did you feel when that spiked?
Dr. Al:
I didn’t feel anything different. Not a thing different. Now, here’s another interesting thing. When you are on a very low carb or a carnivore diet, your resting blood glucose is significantly higher than you think it should be. There are some studies that show that. It’s very interesting. Here’s my philosophy about this. I’m not sure if it’s accurate or not, but my body needs some glucose and it knows how to make glucose when it doesn’t have it from gluconeogenesis.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Dr. Al:
Because I’m not eating any carbs, it’s going to raise my level of glucose. When I wake up in the morning, my glucose is around 105 to 110.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, the dawn effect, typically, the dawn effect may be low 90s for people, but meaning, the dawn effect [00:25:22]. It’s normal to have cortisol go up and glucose to be a little higher in the morning than the rest of the day. Yours went up to maybe 10 points higher than normal.
Dr. Al:
Yeah. I think it stays stable at that high level in the middle of the night and that’s why CGM is interesting because it’s showing that its maybe a 110 to 115 while I’m sleeping. That’s a lot. I think that may be normal for me, but this is interesting. When I have my coffee and I only know this because I’m wearing the CGM and I’m looking at the results every five minutes, because it records every minutes.
Dr. Pompa:
Coffee made it go down.
Dr. Al:
Yeah, exactly. All this fat dropped it to 85. My normal level was 100 to 110 dropped to 85 and then it stayed basically where it was. Then I have lunch and I had lunch with zero carbs today and it stayed maybe at a 100 to a 104. After I ate, it only peaked to a 107 to a 109.
Dr. Pompa:
What’s your theory?
Dr. Al:
My theory is that when I eat the fat, I’m producing ketones and my body is doing very happy and he doesn’t need any endogenous glucose, gluconeogenesis. It’s not doing anything with glucose and it’s got all the ketones it wants. When I look at my ketone levels—when I drink the coffee and after the coffee, my ketone levels are moderate. As the day progresses, it goes down, my glucose level goes up.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I mean, the body, it can only use sugar fat for energy. When you’re not eating in the middle of the night, your body makes glucose which it knows how to do. Here’s the thing you have to understand because people might say, yeah, but he’s losing muscle because it’s gluconeogenesis, you lose your muscle, but you haven’t lost muscle. If you didn’t use muscle or proteins, only using bad muscle or protein, let’s be clear via breaking it down via autophagy. The liver is producing it, gluconeogenesis, other methods obviously, just for energy. It’s raising up your glucose.
Dr. Al:
It can use anything to get gluconeogenesis.
Dr. Pompa:
My theory here is, because your body wants to do nothing but survive and the innate intelligence does this. It doesn’t want to use your major fuel source. It doesn’t want to tap in to the fat if it doesn’t have to. It will make glucose for you to burn other methods as we’re talking about via gluconeogenesis. It will keep that glucose out there for you to use because your brain needs it. Your brain can’t use fat. It will use ketones or that. To the point, when you eat fat, it will make the ketones, your brain’s happy with that and your body will use some of the ketones as well. That’s what I think is happening. I guess we’re on target.
Dr. Al:
I agree. The muscle mass is very important for the body. The fat is not as important. I think the fat would be metabolized to get what it needs.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the body needs glucose. The brain needs glucose, but it wants to hold on to your fat because it knows, it’s a good lifeline. I mean, that visceral fat. You’re not fat, but when I speak of fat, I’m talking about visceral fat. Your body goes, I might need this so let’s just store this in other ways.
Dr. Al:
Yeah. It’s interesting. This CGM I think is very telling because it helps people—for me, understand variation in glucose is normal and its okay to be at 70 or 80 which everybody thinks is ideal, maybe or maybe not. I don’t know. I like the idea my body knows when it spikes, how to use the insulin properly and get rid of the glucose. Then the insulin I’m sure goes away quickly because the number drops precipitously. I think its effective and this is where I am right now. I’m doing a little educating myself about glucose and its metabolism, but of course, I’m thinking that my body is very satisfied with all the nutrients I can get in the carnivore diet.
From the research that I read from specifically, Paleomedicina clinic because they’ve treated 5,000 patients since 2011 and these are not rats and mice. These are human beings that have severe chronic disease and incurable cancer. Let me tell you this case study that they just published. I’m not sure if you saw it. I don’t think I told you about because I just recently read it. 52-year-old man who was previously diagnosed with glioblastoma. He had conventional treatment with radiation surgery and chemotherapy, went into remission maybe for a couple of months and then, it came back. The medical people were going to start him on the same regimen and he rejected that.
He went to Paleomedicina clinic in Budapest, Hungary. They put him on the Paleolithic ketogenic diet, strict carnivore diet, no plants whatsoever, no medicines, no supplements. Their report was after 38 months of him being with no progression or symptoms and living functionally normally. Now that’s glioblastoma, 38 months carnivore diet. Interesting. They have many reports like this, but this is the longest running report that they’ve published that I could find. This report is very interesting because they go into the details why they think it is the way it is.
Dr. Pompa:
Let’s answer this for people. I’ll let you answer this for people. Wait a minute, don’t you need vitamins and mineral—all the stuff that plants offer, all the phytonutrients, the vitamin C, et cetera. You have cancer. What I’ve heard, I’m speaking for people, what I’ve heard is, for cancer, you need all these vitamins and antioxidants and that you’re getting none of that or that gentleman for 38 months got none of it. Al, how do you explain that because all the cancer diets are high plant diets. As a matter of fact, only plant diets, vegetarian, vegan diets. What’s your answer?
Dr. Al:
Here’s what’s amazing. The animals that I’m eating have a digestive track to digest the antinutrients in plants. That’s what they eat. They have a very short—small intestine but a very long large intestine and a cecum where all the plant material is digested and the antinutrients are destroyed. All the nutrients are absorbed in their fat, their organs and their muscle meats and the collagenous material in their bodies. These nutrients are the bioactive nutrients that we think we’re getting from plants. What we get from plants are these bioactive nutrients superimposed with the antinutrients that are competing with our ability to process them.
Here’s what I think. We have a DNA code. Interestingly, it has evolved for 160,000 years at least if you believe in evolution which I do. This code knows exactly what it requires. We need to eat. We need to drink. We need to breath. These are things that we can’t deny ourselves of or we’re going to die. That’s one extreme of the pendulum. The other extreme of the pendulum of the DNA code is that our DNA knows that it has never created the enzymes or the efficiency to get rid of poison in our body.
Now poison can be defined in a lot of ways, but whatever that irritates and punctures our body continuously is poisonous. It’s like taking a splinter in your finger and removing it and the skin heals. Yeah, it will, but if you take that splinter and keep stabbing it in the same puncture hole, the skin never heals. If you put the same junk in your gut and you breath the same air that is contaminated, you’re going to constantly irritate your body. I believe our DNA does not allow that and we keep doing that.
What we’re doing in a carnivore diet is that we’re eating all these biologically active nutrients that, when you eat the meat and the fat and the organs get absorbed in our body. These are theoretically the phytonutrients minus the antinutrient components that are in the plants. Here’s another very interesting thing. Vitamin C is critical for health. Not so sure that vitamin C in capsules and liposomes, liposomal and all kinds of vitamin C may be the ideal. The ideal vitamin C for humans is the vitamin C in liver. The vitamin C in liver is actually heat stable. Vitamin C from plants which is a slightly different chemical isn’t heat stable. Heat will destroy vitamin C in oranges, but heat will not destroy the vitamin C in liver.
When you’re not eating the carbohydrates because glucose competes with vitamin C to get into the cell, if you’re not eating all this glucose, the vitamin C has no problem getting into the cell especially if it’s coming from a highly biologically active source which would be liver which is very interesting. The same thing with magnesium. Magnesium competes with glucose to get into the cell. If you’re not eating a lot of glucose, overly carbohydrate type of diet, then the magnesium has no problem to get into the cell. Now, I eat organs. I eat bone marrow. I’m eating a lot of this real, but I’m also eating it desiccated forms from animals that have been grass-fed and grass-finished. I’m getting all these nutrients and I think that’s a very critical part.
Dr. Pompa:
I think so too.
Dr. Al:
If I’m just eating ribeye steak every night, that’s not going to cut it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, because to your point, that’s why it’s two to one fat because the fat is really what holds the nutrients the animal ate. The animal brings in the nutrients, makes them super bioavailable, stores them in the fat and you’re eating the fat. Of course, that is. The body survives. We know the [00:37:09] people were eating mostly fat throughout the winter.
Dr. Al:
When you say that, there are some studies from Paleolithic times that have done nitrogen testing to determine where this protein is coming from, plants or animals, and most of it is coming from animals. This is stuff that’s been published in very well-respected medical journals around the world. I think there is a reason why plant-based foods are so popular. There’s an industry that makes a lot of money on processing plant-based foods. When you go to a fast-food restaurant and get a plant-based burger, that’s the ultimate in marketing plant-based foods. I think that there is not as much money in the real animal products as there is in packaged processed plant foods. There may be other reasons. Listen, I think a vegetarian diet, a vegan diet is far healthier than the standard American diet. I mean, there are degrees of what you need and what you don’t need.
Dr. Pompa:
You know my philosophy, moving in and out of some of those diets periodically is what nature forced in the past. I want people to understand that our bodies, I think, need these times of changing up the nutrients like we’re talking about.
Dr. Al:
We need variety. We need challenges in our body. I agree with you.
Dr. Pompa:
Likewise, going to a plant-based, it can be very challenging. There are toxins in the plants. Lectins or [00:38:53], phytates, all of those things are little toxins. Then moving to an all-meat diet because of the increased fat or I should say the carnivore diet with all the fat is a new stressor that changes the microbiome. That shifting could be good. I have to say, we have to get back, and I want to touch on this again here in the last moments because I want people to hear how important cause is.
You’ve dedicated part of your life to this research. By the way, we’re going to provide the links to some of your articles. Brilliant article writer. If I can only write as eloquent as you, Al. I’m telling you he is great. He is a great researcher, great writer. We’re going to make sure we have all of those links. Ashley will put them up. You have to go read his stuff, folks. You do. Just absolutely brilliant.
The other part of your research is this, this oral component which I stand—I feel like oftentimes in functional medicine is this guy who keeps telling people, oh my gosh, we have to look here. Hidden infections. Obviously, amalgam fillings. People get that more. You and I resonate so solid on this. This is your background. Infection. What do you think the cause—how much disease is this causing. Obviously, it led to a lot of what you’re battling.
Dr. Al:
Here is my philosophy from my reading research. I’ve not done actual studies on animals or humans in this regard but reading. I think everything starts from the gut, and here’s why I say that. The gut microbiome is so critical. It affects the epithelial barrier of the gut. Inside the gut lumen is lipopolysaccharides which are normal for the gut but totally toxic to the human body that leaks into the bloodstream. When there is a change in the gut microbiome with food, with chemicals, with dirty electromagnetic fields, poor sleep, emotional distress, over exercising, there are so many factors that affect the microbiome.
Once that microbiome changes and the mucus layer is affected, and the epithelial barrier is damaged, and LPS and other junk that’s not fully—or other substances that are not fully digested leak in the bloodstream, the immune system goes haywire and it stays in a chronic state. It can’t mount a defense when something really severe comes into the body because it’s in a constant chronic stage. What happens is, there’s a change in the chronic systemic inflammation and a change in the overall health of the immune system. That change affects the mouth and there are maybe 700 or so potential species of bacteria in the mouth that are in a wonderful homeostatic balance.
We know that when we look at skeletal remains of 10,000 or 20,000 years ago, in humans, we can see jaw bone relatively intact, tooth structure relatively decay-free but tartar around the root surface near the bone which is a dental plaque that has calcified. The reason there’s no damage to the tooth and no damage to the bone for the most part is because the bacteria is in a state of balance. Dental plaque—this is going to floor you or somebody, I’m sure. Dental plaque is healthy until it’s not. You don’t want to remove dental plaque because here’s what dental plaque does.
First of all, the tooth gum unit is only area in the body where a hard substance pierces the epithelium and goes into the inner structures of the bone which are basically sterile. That pathway needs to be protected or any pathogens in that area will slide down like a sliding board into the internal structure of the body. What happens is, our bodies have created a healthy biofilm called dental plaque. That dental plaque surrounds and attaches to where the gum tooth margin is. That dental plaque does three things. It’s the gatekeeper to take minerals from the saliva and it passes it to the root surface and remineralizes the root as necessary, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The other thing that dental plaque does is that it creates, because it’s so many species, a variety of hydrogen peroxide that literally kills other potential pathogenic bacteria in the mouth from getting into this very critical gum tooth margin. The third thing it does is it has some chemical buffers that protects the surface of the root so that it is not too acidic. It maintains the pH of 5.5 or more alkaline rather than more—
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, yeah. What you’re saying is, the plaque is like fireman in a fire meaning—
Dr. Al:
Absolutely.
Dr. Pompa:
They’re there doing a reason right. Don’t kill the firemen because they’re actually there. It just so happens that every time here’s these fires, these guys in the red coats are there but they’re not causing the fire.
Dr. Al:
Correct. When the gut is dysbiotic and we have chronic inflammation, the immune system is somewhat compromised, this garden of bacteria starts to change and some of the potential pathogenic bacteria that are not a problem when they’re in balance have the potential to overgrow especially from eating the foods that support that growth of bad bacteria. Then you have unhealthy dental plaque. That’s when dental disease occurs. Now, that’s the first time most practitioners see a problem. They see the inflammation in the mouth and they say, wow, this mouth is causing disease in the body. That’s only 50% true. It’s only the second nidus of infection. The first was the gut.
Here’s what I believe. There has been a study that was published in 2010 that showed that 94% of the US population has some form of gingival inflammation. That is gingivitis. That is infection. Now, that may not kill you, but it is infection. The only reason they have that, in my opinion is something has gone wrong with the gut. You don’t have to have stomach problems. You don’t have to have bloating or diarrhea or constipation. It doesn’t have to be symptomatic gut problems. It’s just that inflammation has gotten into the circulatory system. Basically, that solution is to treat the mouth but also to treat to gut. There are hidden things in the mouth that most people don’t even see even dentists. Failing root canals that are not painful for the patient, but there’s changes in the bone structure.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, right. No, I mean, we have this—and it goes the other way around. You have these root canals that people have and you can’t fix the gut. We get a root canal out, boom, microbiome changes.
Dr. Al:
Absolutely. You’re starting to balance things now because everything—you’re not getting a change in the gut microbiome by swallowing the bacteria. That’s a misnomer because the stomach acid kills the bacteria, but the bacteria can seep into the bloodstream under the gum pocket which is called a leaky periodontal pocket. It can get into the lymph and eventually get back into the circulatory system. What is very unrecognized is that, all this inflammation and infection can travel the myelin sheaths of nerves as it travels to other areas in the bone that don’t even go through the circulatory system. There’s a lot of ways that this can—
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, that’s why there’s certain teeth to represent problems at certain areas.
Dr. Al:
This is my impression of meridians. I think the meridians are nothing more than the nerve canal, the nerve channels where the bacteria is transmitting instantaneously.
Dr. Pompa:
I’ve said the same thing, yeah.
Dr. Al:
I think that we need to write a paper about that because I’ve tried to research that and I can’t find that anywhere.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s funny. I had a client here locally seeing the dentist who’s local and I was saying these bacteria that kept forming here were affecting her knees. He just went up and just put some procaine in that area. Within one minute, all her knee pain was gone. Now, he made the point. It won’t last until we get this infection out, but the infection were literally travelling those nerves.
Dr. Al:
It’s a great educational tool and diagnostic tool, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Dr. Al:
Now, here’s something that I think anybody that’s a practitioner can do to determine if there is active gum inflammation and infection. Just looking at the gum tissue doesn’t always do it. When you brush and floss, it may bleed, it may not bleed, but you still may have infection. Here’s the little gadget that works really well. These are called TePe interdental brushes. These are very little brushes that look like a toothpick but there are silicon filaments that you clean between the teeth by scrubbing in and out. These little filaments stimulate the gum surface between the teeth. If there’s any inflammation, you will get bleeding in that area.
Anybody could say to their patient, not being a dentist, they could say, take these and clean between the teeth and let’s see if there’s any bleeding especially in the back of your mouth which is where most people have bleeding but they’re not able to see it. If there is any pink or bleeding from these areas simulated by that little brush, it’s a telltale sign that there’s gum infection. If you can’t treat it, that’s fine, but get them to the right biological dentist to get that taken care of.
Dr. Pompa:
You might have cavitation which a tooth was pulled or a wisdom tooth and it holds infection which you and I have had this conversation. That was me. I mean, I had one. I didn’t know. I used to form all these plaque as a protector and now I form no plaque at all, but I got rid of these infections. It had a dramatic effect on—even my resting blood pressure, so many things [00:49:44] infection.
Dr. Al:
Just think about it. This infection, although it may not cause pain, sometimes it does, but it doesn’t cause pain, this is constantly stimulating your immune system. Cytokine reaction constantly. Your immune system is constantly being overworked just to try to treat this and it’s not doing a good job and you have some chronic systemic inflammation. Once that is gone, your whole immune system can be reenergized which is what our bodies really need today.
Dr. Pompa:
I agree. Listen, Al. We’re out of time. I can’t believe that that was so fast. What a breadth of knowledge, from pain to purpose story. Thank you for sharing this. We’re going to have to have a part three. We got to just keep following up with you, Al.
Dr. Al:
Here I am. You’re wonderful and thanks for the opportunity.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. Reach out to Al. His contact information’s here but Al, go ahead and just voice where you’d love people to go.
Dr. Al:
My website drdanenberg.com, D-R-D-A-N-E-N-B-E-R-G dot com. If you go to the little navigation bar and hit contact and send me an email with a question, I answer all my email questions. All of them.
Dr. Pompa:
He does. All right, Al. Thanks for being on.
Dr. Al:
Have a great day. Thanks. Take care.
Ashley:
That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode which was brought to you by Fastonic Molecular Hydrogen. Please check it out at getfastonic.com. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10:00 AM Eastern. We truly appreciate your support. You can always find us at cellularhealing.tv and please remember to spread the love by liking, subscribing, giving an iTunes review or sharing the show with anyone who may benefit from the information heard here. As always, thanks for listening.
